The Taliban killed at least 16 people and kidnapped dozens of others on Tuesday after pulling them from buses in northern Afghanistan, officials said, in the latest assault since the insurgents named a new leader last week.

The Taliban have so far not commented on the incident in Aliabad district in the volatile province of Kunduz, where the insurgents briefly overran the provincial capital in a stunning military victory last year.

“The Taliban shot dead 16 passengers and they are still holding more than 30 others,” said Sayed Mahmood Danish, spokesman for the governor of Kunduz.

Police commander Shir Aziz Kamawal gave a death toll of 17.

Around 200 passengers were travelling in the buses when they were stopped by the Taliban.

“They (Taliban) have released some passengers but are holding many others. None of the passengers were wearing military uniform, but some may have been former police,” he said.

Residents of insurgency-prone Aliabad told AFP that the Taliban were holding an informal court in a local mosque, scrutinising the ID documents of the passengers and interrogating them for any government links.

Highways around Afghanistan passing through insurgency prone areas have become exceedingly dangerous, with the Taliban and other armed groups frequently kidnapping and killing travellers.

Civilians are increasingly caught in the cross hairs of Afghanistan’s worsening conflict as the Taliban step up their annual spring offensive, launched last month against the Western-backed Kabul government.

The Afghan Taliban last Wednesday announced Haibatullah Akhundzada as their new leader, elevating a low-profile religious figure in a swift power transition after officially confirming the death of Mullah Mansour in a US drone strike.

The Royal Thai Navy will build a new offshore patrol vessel (OPV) that will be powered by 2 × MAN 16V28/33D STC engines. The 90-m newbuilding will be constructed at Mahidol Adulyadej naval dockyard in Sattahip. The vessel is an improved River-class design.

Locally called OPV No. 2, the order follows that of OPV No. 1, the ‘HTMS Krabi’ that was ordered in 2009, a similar vessel that featured 2 × 16V28/33D engines.

Olivier Condemine, Senior Sales Manager – Naval & Governmental – MAN Diesel & Turbo said: “Sequential turbocharging improves the already proven performance and fuel-efficiency of the 28/33D engine, especially at intermediate and low-load operations – known as silent running – which is very important for this kind of vessel.”

MAN 28/33D STC range

The range offers 12-, 16-, and 20-cylinder configurations covering power requirements from 5,000 up to 10,000 kW per unit.

The armament of the forces of Myanmar are interested in continuing cooperation with Ukraine in the sphere of production of modern wheeled armored vehicles. This became known reporters portal military-informant.com .

Myanmar expects to buy even more Ukrainian armored personnel carriers, which proved themselves during the border crisis with China in early 2015.

As is known, Myanmar was one of the buyers of new Ukrainian BTR-3U, when concluded in 2003, the first contract for the supply of ten wheeled combat vehicles. Upon receipt of the first experimental batch it was decided about the licensed production of the kits supplied from Ukraine directly at the territory of Myanmar.

According to unconfirmed information, at the moment in Myanmar it produced about 50 armored vehicles with an option for the same. It is worth noting that part of the combat vehicles BTR-3U is equipped protivokumulyativnymi screens.

BTR-3 - a modern Ukrainian armored personnel carrier designed Kharkiv Machine Building Design Bureau named after Morozov. It is a further development of the design of the BTR-80.

BTR-3 became a hit Ukrainian defense industry and exported to many countries, including Thailand, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, UAE, Sudan, Chad , and is designed to transport personnel of mechanized infantry units and fire support in combat. APC is used to equip the units are able to conduct operations in a variety of conditions, including the conditions of use of the enemy weapons of mass destruction.

India and Russia have agreed 'in principle' to export the world's fastest anti-ship cruise missile, BrahMos, to third countries - the UAE, Vietnam, South Africa and Chile, Praveen Pathak, spokesman for BrahMos Aerospace - the developer of the missile, told TASS on Friday.

"The several structural changes were made in the defense exports policy and these were yielding results. As far as the BrahMos missile is concerned, talks with countries like UAE, Chile, South Africa and Vietnam are in advanced stages," he said.

"Since Russia is the partner country in the BrahMos joint venture with its consent discussions with several other countries, including Philippines, South Korea, Algeria, Greece, Malaysia, Thailand, Egypt, Singapore, Venezuela and Bulgaria have now been taken to the next level," he said.Vietnam, China
"In the case of Vietnam, China has expressed its reservations against India's policies to supply weapons. In the South China Sea, China and Vietnam are locked in a conflict over maritime boundaries. We expect that those friendly nations with whom neither India nor Russia have any conflict would be keen on buying these missiles," he said.
BrahMos

BrahMos was developed jointly by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM), which in 1998 established the company BrahMos Aerospace. The name BrahMos is a portmanteau formed from the names of two rivers, the Brahmaputra of India and the Moskva of Russia.

The BrahMos supersonic missile develops a speed of Mach 3. An upgraded model capable of reaching Mach 6 speed is currently being tested. According to BrahMos Aerospace, the missile has flight range of up to 290 km with supersonic speed all through the flight, leading to shorter flight time, consequently ensuring lower dispersion of targets, quicker engagement time and non-interception by any known weapon system in the world. It operates on ‘Fire and Forget Principle’, adopting varieties of flights on its way to the target. Its destructive power is enhanced due to large kinetic energy on impact. Its cruising altitude could be up to 15 km and terminal altitude is as low as 10 meters. It carries a conventional warhead weighing 200 to 300 kg.

Compared to existing state-of-the-art subsonic cruise missiles, BrahMos has: 3 times more velocity, 2.5 to 3 times more flight range, 3 to 4 times more seeker range, 9 times more kinetic energy. The missile has identical configuration for land, sea and sub-sea platforms and uses a Transport Launch Canister (TLC) for transportation, storage and launch

As part of its long-term plan to arm its Sejong the Great-class destroyers with the SM-3 and SM-6 air intercept missiles, the South Korean Navy is proceeding with the Mk 41 VLS on three existing ships.

The Royal Thai Navy and the U.S. Navy carried the bilateral Exercise Guardian Sea in the Andaman Sea May 23-27 and a senior RTN officer said his service’s S-70B anti-submarine helicopter did very well in the exercise.